Thursday, July 17, 2008

Tony Clark to Arizona

Yes, the rumors are true. Today we traded Tony Clark to the Diamondbacks for RHP Evan Scribner.

While primarily a starter in his amateur days at Central Connecticut, the D'Backs have used Evan as a reliever. Standing 6'3" and featuring a 90-91 mph fastball with a big curveball, Evan has posted the following line so far in his pro career: 2.27 ERA, 91 innings, 70 hits, 24 walks, and 123 strikeouts.

After being drafted in the 28th round in 2007, Evan began his career in rookie ball before finishing the season with 10.1 innings at South Bend (Midwest League). Evan returned to South Bend for the 2008 season, pitching 34.1 innings, striking out 52 hitters, and sporting a 1.57 ERA. The D'Backs recently moved Evan to high-A Visalia in the Cal League where he has pitched 9.2 innings (5 hits, 2 walks, 10 k's). Overall he has nine saves on the season.

In addition to the reports we receive from our scouts, both amateur and pro, we also ask our player development staffs to weigh in on players in their leagues. Generally we don't ask for too much volume or detail. After all, our staffs are busy enough managing their own teams. However, we do ask that they leave a voicemail with some specifics if there is an opposing player they particularly like. That way we can make sure our scouts follow up with a more formal report as the season continues. In this case, Doug Dascenzo, our manager in Ft. Wayne, phoned in a report on Evan earlier this season which initiated our interest.

We're excited to add Evan to our system, and we wish Tony the best of luck. He's truly a class act. As I wrote in an earlier post, his leadership in the clubhouse and his game-changing power are great attributes for a Club looking to complete their puzzle. Unfortunately, we're not in a position this season to take full advantage of those skills.

17 comments:

Congrats on dealing Tony, he is a class act. I really like the acquisition because the kid has dominated, and most importantly because he does not need to be exposed to the rule V draft until a couple of years...

Can you tell us what players in the Padres organization will debut on the list in this year?

Seems like a pretty good haul for Tony Clark. Clark has had some nice success in AZ and hopefully for him he recaptures it.

Scribner has a funny stat line in the sense that in college his strikeout numbers were fairly pedestrian until his senior year. From there, he went on to improve his K rate in the pros. Scribner isn't exactly young for the levels he's pitched at, but he isn't way too old for them either, so the numbers are promising. A 6/1 K/BB ratio is just phenomenal and he seems to be good at avoiding hR's.

I just wonder why all of a sudden after 3 years of college he began to start striking people out at a significantly higher rate, a trend that continued even in pro ball, where you wouldn't expect it to.

Did he play another sport? Suddenly add 3-5 MPH on his fastball? Learn a killer second pitch? Change his release (i.e. throw submarine)? I realize he's pitching exclusively out of the pen now, which has an impact, but he pitched in the pen in each of his four years of college as well.

A scout's take on what changed suddenly in this young man's game would be interesting to hear.

Thanks for describing how the Padres got their player in return for Tony. I've always wondered how these random low minor league guys got traded - apparently it's not so random but more of a process. In trading Tony to the D-backs, was this more of a show of nice gesture to Tony or was this the best offer on the table? Couldn't another contender outside of the division have used his skills? I can just see Tony hitting a late inning HR against the Pads later in the season...

Just got back from watching Scribner pitch tonight in Elsinore. He pitched one inning and struck out the side while allowing a double. Fastball looked to be around 90 (that's a guess, there's no radar gun at The Diamond), but hitters really were fooled by the curveball. He looked pretty promising!!

In other news, if you're a Padres fan you should go to a game in Lake Elsinore. It's really cool to see future Padres before they hit the big club. We got to see Kellen Kulbacki and Cedric Hunter both have huge games (each had 3 hits including an extra base hit each). Caesar Carillo also pitched 5 shutout innings. A great night in Elsinore.

abc1282 brings up a good point: his extreme flyball tendencies do seem to be a trend.

His K/9 and BB/9 are exceptional, which means that his K/BB is quite impressive (and a comparable made up stat I like with a better range, KOB (K/9 / 3*WHIP)) and they indicate that he does minimize batters getting on base. So, since he seems to have good control over his pitches thus far, then why does he have such an extreme flyball tendency? I know that curveball pitchers tend to be flyball pitchers, but this rate seems to me that he works up in the zone with his fastball, too. Is this known?

Either way, kudos on bringing a quality arm to the organization. And continued good luck on making decisions at this time of the year.

I see Colorado sent Jason Nix back down and he'll have to clear waivers.

Any chance the Padres claim him? Whats the price for claiming a player in a move like this (other than angering a division rival and almost asking them to claim one of your guys when you try to sneak them through waivers)?

The AAA numbers I see on Nix look great - .299 BA, .372 OBP, 14 hr's, 43 rbi and 54 runs (.948 ops) in only 231 ab's. Granted you have to figure that a player in AAA Colorado has their numbers inflated a bit (do they use the humidor as well?), thats still good production from a player who seems major league ready (I think he's been given a bit of a raw deal in Colorado since he's not seen enough ab's to get comfortable. Understandably they're a bit over crowded at 2b right now).

Any interest on the Padres part? I think Edgar Gonzalez has been great for the Pads (and I know he plays the same position). It would seem to me that adding Nix would be a similar type move with very little downside and provide infield depth at the major league level.

Nix is only 26, fours years younger than Edgar and 8 years younger than Iguchi, and it might allow the Pads to deal Iguchi to a team that needs a 2b (Milwalkee, NYM) or a 3b (Min and Philly liked him a lot last season).

based on how this year is going, it appears the padres are going to be drafting high next year. With the deeper investment in draft picks this year coupled with some great latin american signings, do you figure the padres to draft according to best available, or home-town discount "signability" (e.g. Matt Bush)

I tired of all the folks that critize the team for drafting Bush, as he was not a top 10 talent. If I remember well, he was the top 8 player according to Baseball America. Stephen Drew has not been the difference maker a #1 pick should be. So kudos to KT for not drafting him. Weaver has been a good pitcher for a very good team, but his results do not reflect a #1 pick either.

The draft is a crapshoot. The Minnesota Twins gave the hometown discount to Joe Maurer ahead of Mark Prior. Are they complaining?

I still believe Matt Bush will contribute. The kid had the fallback option of pitching, and the arm is electric. In a couple of years, he could prove you wrong arizonapadrefan... But I think that it was wise not to select those players, bush's injuries and poor attitude did not help either.